| Description | A collection of glass lantern slides belonging to Sir William John Thompson, the majority created [for him] by Thomas Holmes Mason. The slides are statistical in nature, dealing with Irish censuses, birth and marriage rates, and diseases frequency and mortality rates.
The slides were probably produced to illustrate talks given by Thompson, either as Registrar General for Ireland or to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland. Thompson presented a number of papers to this society, between 1911 and 1926, on the Irish Censuses and on mortality rates in Ireland. |
| Custodial History | William John Thompson was born in Co. Tyrone in 1861, he graduates as Licentiate of RCPI and RCSI in 1888, before entering Trinity College where he graduated MB (1894) and MD (1895). He was conferred as a Fellow of RCPI in 1902, and was elected College President in 1924. Thompson was Physician to Jervis Street Hospital and Consulting Physician to the Royal National Hospital for Consumption, as well as operating a private practice. He received a knighthood in 1907.
In 1909 Thompson was appointed Registrar General for Ireland, and resigned from medical practice. He held the post until 1926, and was responsible for carrying out the 1911 and 1926 Censuses. Thompson supported Lady Aberdeen in her campaign against Tuberculosis in Ireland, as well as a number of other public health campaigns and societies. He was a member of numerous medical societies, as well as the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, of which he was President. |